Mount Pearl Mayor Randy Simms said his city has come through the power crisis OK, but he's asking residents for a little bit of help.

Randy Simms

With clear weather, but plenty of snow on the ground, Simms said fire hydrants are becoming an issue.

"We're going to look to our residents to do us a little favour, and it has to do with fire hydrants," he said. "A good neighbour thing would be to go down with a shovel today and say, well, I'm going to try and get to the front of that hydrant, so that if anything should happen, god forbid, that hydrant is readily accessible."

He said that the city has about 800 fire hydrants, and crews have only been able to clear around 127 so far, leaving hundreds buried under the snow.

St. John's Mayor Dennis O'keefe has asked for similar help from residents in the capital city.

Apart from cleanup, Simms said people are coping pretty well in his neck of the woods. Mount Pearl set up warming centres, but they haven't seen a whole lot of use.

"Neighhbours took care of neighbours; all in all, it went pretty good," Simms said. "People were helping people all the way through."

At this point, pretty much every public official in every role in the province is asking people to conserve electricity, and Simms added his voice to that. He said that as the power utilities try to add more people back on to the grid, every little bit of conservation helps.

"Any lightbulb that doesn't need to be on shouldn't be on, so most of us are trying to conserve as much as we possibly can to help out the system," he said.

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Ran

January 06, 2014 - 18:23

There is a fire hydrant in front of my mom's house and it is a clean as a day in July. No matter how much it snows my brother in law shovels it out and it is even salted. My mom like to know she is safe if there is ever a fire. It does take much time it is included in cleaning out here front entrance.